What is a Fee-Only Financial Planner?

We don’t love the term either, because it is hard to figure out what it means. But we do stand by being fee-only advisors.

Simply put, our clients pay us a fee for financial planning and investment advice. We do not make any commission from the investments that our clients make.

Here is a bit of a longer explanation from our website:

As fee-only financial planners, we always operate as fiduciaries. This means that we are legally obligated to provide advice that is in your best interest. That is, we don’t profit by selling you a particular product or investment. Many people believe that all financial advisors are required to give advice that is in your best interest; unfortunately, that’s not always true if they have something to gain by steering you in one direction or another.  Since commission-based financial planners are paid to sell products, they may choose a product that pays them a higher commission, even if it’s not the best choice for you. As fiduciaries, we don’t get paid that way.

We always have our clients’ best interests in mind since we don’t make any more money by providing certain investment advice.

For more information on our process and philosophy check out our Strategic Reliable Blueprint.

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.